


and true love waits in haunted attics

by jontinf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Romantic Friendship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jontinf/pseuds/jontinf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lancelot returns from the dead. He and Gwaine talk at the feast given in his honor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and true love waits in haunted attics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withkissesfour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withkissesfour/gifts).



> Written as spec for 4x01 and 4x02 for withkissesfour. Her prompt: “I miss you so much it hurts sometimes.” Because Scrubs is the greatest show that ever was.

After four and a half weeks, they assume the worst and burn a pyre in his honor. Two weeks pass after that, he sets foot in Camelot, eyes burning, shivering, alive. Two days later, he vacantly watches his ale at a feast in celebration of the life of King Arthur’s most loyal knight.

The courtiers talk of how she dropped everything to organize this, meticulously looking after every detail, making it grander than anything before. She does these things but can only bring herself to say very little to him.

He tries not feeling anything at the things she does or doesn’t do, just as how he now tries not to look at her.

He always tries.

Then there are other things he tries not to think of, such as the last two months of his life, how it involved raiders, hateful and indiscriminate and indifferent like the ones who had slaughtered his family.

There is so much not to do when you are alive.

A cup clanks down next to him, Gwaine’s favorite way of announcing his presence in these festivities. The two men only exchanged a few words and pats on the back since Lancelot’s return. They don’t look at each other when Gwaine starts to speak.

“You know what you need, Lancelot?”

Lancelot readies himself for something endearingly crude or just drunk.

“What’s that?”

“The love…” Gwaine swirls his hand in the air as if describing some pleasing scent and finishes half-breathlessly, “…of a good woman.”

“And you would be the one to ask about good women?”

“You would be surprised.”

Lancelot turns to look at him. There are so many ways he can respond to that. “There are rumors that you might actually be nobility.”

Still smiling, Gwaine pauses and takes a swig. Apparently, such a comment warrants it. Then again, for Gwaine, any comment could warrant it.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. I’m just as common and pitiful as you are.”

Lancelot knocks his cup against Gwaine’s and drinks to this. “I don’t doubt that.”

“Now,” Gwaine says, inching slightly closer, “we were talking about wo—”

“—for a good woman, you’d need someone as good as she.” Lancelot’s tone is heavy and low as though he speaks of consequences, a terrible cautionary tale. “And I am not that.”

At first, Gwaine just looks back at him, just staring. Then he scoffs and shakes his head, looking vaguely offended.

“Last time I checked loving the same woman as another man didn’t make you bad, mate. Stupid, maybe. Hopeless. A jumped up dung beetle even.”

Lancelot smiles, laughs even. Not wildly, but despite himself.

“Arthur used that in try outs the other day,” Gwaine says. “I think he spends a good amount of time coming up with them in private.”

“That’s an old one. He used that the first time I met him.”

They realize that they’re laughing over their shared fondness for this man, a man, in some other life, they might have disliked. In this one, Arthur is remarkable, brave and stands unwaveringly at his roundtable, affirming them equals of a king, ready to lay his life down for any one of them.

Gwaine breaks the silence with a settled _ahh_ , hair sloshing onto his face. For a moment, Lancelot wonders if Gwaine is as drunk as he’d like to be. By this time in the evening, he’d be knocking into things, happily swinging arms around a varied lot as Gwen or Merlin kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t topple into something or cross paths with a touchy noble or a besotted daughter.

Suddenly, Gwaine grabs hold of Lancelot’s shoulder, sort of steadying it for the next part of what he wants to say.

“I think I came here to tell you that I’m glad that you’re alive. Even when you don’t seem to be.”

There is a servant, a pretty young woman, he isn’t sure of her name, but she throws a hesitant smile his way every time she attends to him, the look of apprehension and panic on the face of someone about to witness a child cry right in front of them. He buries his face in his hands the moment he realizes that he’s in fact wallowing at his own feast and everyone knows.

How did it get to this?

“I really look that pitiable?”

“Only if anyone looks at you.” Gwaine says this with the insinuation that he understands.

There is that time of adjustment after coming back from the dead, especially as when becoming aware that the only thing that’s changed with time is himself.

“But I will remind you of the bright side,” Gwaine says.

Lancelot’s smiling again, with the same fondness with which he reacts to one of Merlin’s tricks. “There’s always a bright side, isn’t there?”

Gwaine’s face is wry, earnest. “There is indeed.”

He hoists one leg laboriously out from under the table. “When people thought you were dead, you were missed.” He makes a fist and then brings it against his heart. In jest. Mostly. “So much it hurt sometimes.”

Lancelot rolls his eyes. “I can imagine.”

But they look upon each other warmly, wholly, as gently as two men who wielded swords for a living could.

“Well, then imagine this,” Gwaine tilts his head not so discreetly to his right, “the girl that’s been attending to you all evening, her name is Elaine.”

Lancelot looks up to find that Elaine is speaking to Leon, but her body faces him. Her eyes are sharp and focused, a deep, melancholy green.

He considers this and notices her gaze dither. Almost as if she is trying not to look at him.


End file.
